Alliance of Concerned Taxpayers, Inc., Appellant v. Kenai Peninsula Borough, Appellee; Kenai Peninsula Borough…

Summary

The court affirmed summary judgment upholding the Borough's increase of its sales tax to three percent and invalidating the voter initiative requiring prior approval for capital projects exceeding one million dollars. It held that the 1964 voter authorization of a sales tax rate up to three percent preserved the Borough's authority to restore that rate after a later reduction, and that the capital-project initiative impermissibly interfered with the Borough Assembly's exclusive authority to allocate public funds. The court also reversed the ruling that ACT was protected from attorney-fee liability as a constitutional litigant because the local initiative power is statutory rather than constitutional.